Lever a bit sticky on my BB 357 ...UPDATE

[JEBar]

Henry recommends forcefully working their levers .... for me that's always been the norm and I honestly don't feel the resistance from the bolt cocking the hammer .... its all just part of the process .... the next time I get one of our out, I'm going to have to try and see I can isolate the feel of the resistance between the hammer and bolt

[markiver54]

Personally, I never knew this was happening till I saw it...didn't feel it at all.

[fortyshooter]

Made up my fixture to depress plunger and knock out retaining pin. Pin tapped out easy.
First thing is to polish contact side of angle cut on the downward lever stroke side only and see if it breaks free smoother.
Was following mods like this on the Marlin rifles. Won't take much to help smooth it out.

[JEBar]

fascinating .... way above my level .... looking forward to following your work on this

[BigAl52]

I knew after seeing one picture that Forty posted that he would be at this project like a beaver is on a tree he needs for his dam. When Forty was makin those speed loaders that picture of his shop was telling a story about Forty.

[GunnyGene]

Made up my fixture to depress plunger and knock out retaining pin. Pin tapped out easy.
First thing is to polish contact side of angle cut on the downward lever stroke side only and see if it breaks free smoother.
Was following mods like this on the Marlin rifles. Won't take much to help smooth it out.

Saw this coming, but didn't want to steal your thunder. While you've got it apart you might as well do a little something with the locking bolt also.

[fortyshooter]

SUCCESS!
I polished up the plunger and after looking at the factory spring went looking thru my spring drawer.
Found a spring that measured exact .160 diameter as stock but was made of slightly thinner wire but with a few more coils.
It is actually an industrial die spring used to work under a shedder pin inside a die punch. I am a retired Tool&Die Maker you know!

Anyway I also polished a few wear areas on the upper part of lever with 800 grit paper that were showing contact and lubed it up
with my Moly Graph grease...great stuff. Installed the lever and man what a difference!!! The breakaway force of cycling the lever is much less with no stickiness just smooth and enough plunger spring tension to hold lever in place with just a bit of finger pressure to break lever loose and cycle!!!
Can't wait to get back down to range and run it some more!

Here you can compare the stock spring on far left and next is my custom spring. Polished plunger leaning against my left over spring material.

Now time for a beer!

[markiver54]

Congratulation on a job well done! You have a lot more patience and know how than me. Good going Forty!

[BigAl52]

I bet a tool and die maker from the era of the quality went in before the name went on.

[JEBar]

Yep, way beyond my pay grade .... nicely done ..